Nerd in the 'Noke

The Hateful Eight (2015), R, 167 minutes (187 minutes Roadshow 70mm)  - Quentin Tarantino announced this film in late 2013, about a year after he released 2012's  Django Unchained .  Shortly thereafter, the script leaked online and he threatened to cancel the film entirely.  Fortunately for those of us who are fans of his work, he changed his mind after hosting a live reading of the script in Los Angeles and by the end of 2014 had begun production on his eighth feature length film. The Hateful Eight (which is the second western in Tarantino's stable of films) takes place just years after the Civil War on a Wyoming mountain pass leading to Red Rock and finds a colorful bunch of characters holed up at Minnie's Haberdashery while a nasty blizzard blows by.  This bunch includes two bounty hunters - Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson) and John 'The Hangman' Ruth (Kurt Russell), their bounties - including Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh), the new Sh...

Selma (2014), PG-13, 128 minutes  - There are certain historical figures that society almost demands a certain level of quality from the finished product when a film is being made about their lives (or a portion thereof). Martin Luther King, Jr. is one of those figures, and Selma lives up to those lofty expectations. Selma retells the story of the struggle for equal voting rights for African Americans in Alabama in 1965, specifically the organization of a non-violent march between Selma and the capital of Montgomery led by Martin Luther King, Jr. (David Oyelowo). A law had previously been passed granting African Americans the right to vote, unfortunately, there was no legislation keeping local governments from blocking that right to vote for any number of completely arbitrary reasons. One such reason portrayed in the film was an African American woman trying to register to vote. She had completed all of the necessary paperwork, but when she submitted it, she was asked ho...

The Incredible Hulk came out the same summer as the first Iron Man (2008).  In my opinion it is probably the weakest of the five movies that feed into The Avengers, but that doesn't mean that it is bad.  That's more a testament to how good the others have turned out.  It is definitely better than Hulk from 2003.  It is a shame that creative differences led to Edward Norton cutting ties with Marvel upon this film's release as he was a pretty darn good Bruce Banner.  I'll be very interested to see how Mark Ruffalo (the third actor to tackle the part of Banner on the big screen) portrays the part in The Avengers. Here's  part 2 of the countdown to The Avengers! The Incredible Hulk (2008), PG-13, 112 minutes -  I had to put off seeing this for a week because it was the film of choice to view on the way back from the annual trip to Charlotte for HeroesCon (yeah I'm a nerd, but it's not like we didn't already know that).  The amazing thing...